Cocaine Fiends and Reefer Madness: An Illustrated History of Drugs in the Movies 1894-1978 - Softcover

Starks, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1579511899 ISBN 13: 9781579511890

Publisher: Ronin Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

From the very beginning, filmmakers have struggled to free themselves from censorship and manipulation by special-interest groups, and this struggle is clearly evident in the history of drug films. Cocaine Fiends and Reefer Madness is an exhaustive exploration of the history of the depiction of psychoactive drugs in motion pictures from Thomas Edison's Opium Smoker (1894) to Cocaine Cowboys (1978), Included are over 400 silent and 1,000 sound films as well as nearly 500 drug-abuse films, 85 experimental films, and 135 television programs. More than 150 stills, most never before published and many extremely rare, illustrate the text. Arranged chronologically as well as by drug type and often by country, this book shows that, far from being a recent phenomenon, drug films were made in nearly every country and period that produced a significant body of films.

Visit Edison's first film studio, reflect on the filmic consequences of Cocteau's opium addiction with Kenneth Anger's early experiences with magic mushrooms, see Charles Laughton smuggling cocaine inside a statute of the Buddha, and watch Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., consuming vast quantities of opium and cocaine in a World War I Sherlock Holmes parody.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Starks is a medical technologist, inventor, entrepreneur, psychedelic voyager, world traveler, stereoscopic videographer and philosopher. He holds several patents and lives in Henderson, NV.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ronin Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1579511899
• ISBN 13: 9781579511890
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 380